Retail Intelligence

Retail Intelligence

Adult Toy Megastore had a lot of success in the 2017 Top Shop Awards, why do you think customer experience is still an important factor for pureplay business?

In a face-to-face retail environment, you have the ability to engage with your customers in person and change your approach on the fly, depending on what their individual needs are and how they respond to you. But the online environment is different – you have to invest in your user experience so the customer has access to all the info they want as quickly as possible

If a customer receives bad customer service from any business, whether it was online or face-to-face, the chances of them coming back are slim. Therefore, any interaction we have with our customers is important, from the moment they land on our website, to the second they receive their parcel, and is an opportunity for us to leave a lasting impression and create a loyal customer.

Traditional retail can advertise and push their products easier to a wider less-regulated audience. Can adult stores use advertising to get ahead in the competition? And is competition heavier in your category than others?

The key to our online success as an adult retailer is the overall experience we provide.

But it doesn’t, and shouldn’t, stop there. We also strive to provide the best possible online customer service. Help is available when it’s needed, and we keep the customer informed of where their order is and when they can expect it. If there are any issues we resolve them as quickly as possible. Having transparency as an online business is a core value and customers appreciate it.

Adult stores face a lot of roadblocks when it comes to advertising. We can’t advertise on a lot of mainstream platforms and there are many restrictions when it comes to any kind of traditional advertising because we’re adult. Therefore, we need to be creative in our approach and the way we advertise our business.

We advertise using Google Adwords, radio, and some print media, but we do a lot of work to grow our brand awareness organically. For example, we use social media and team up with influencers, we sponsor events with product for prizes, attend expos, and create interesting and meaningful content that gets noticed by the public and the media.

Do you find there is difficultly in supplying such personal items online, where there is limited options for a ‘hands-on’ browsing experience?

Being able to physically touch products while shopping certainly has its benefits, but the key factor that makes online shopping for adult products so popular is the discretion involved. We ensure all the information a customer needs in order to make a purchase is readily available, or else we risk losing the sale. We provide detailed product descriptions, many of which have video guides, as well as real customer reviews and access to a bank of in-depth articles and guides about different products. We also have customer service help on hand, via phone call, instant chat, Facebook messenger and email, so we’re easily reached if customers have any questions.

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